Farm focal point of photo prizes

A FARM near Swindon will be featured on popular TV show Countryfile on Sunday.

Sheepdrove Organic Farm at Lambourn was chosen to host the first stage of judging of the programme’s popular photographic competition for the annual Children In Need calendar.

Every year, the programme holds a competition for amateur photographers to submit their snaps of farming and the countryside for the calendar, which raises millions of pounds for BBC charity.

This year eight previous competition winners were tasked with studying more 32,000 entries at the Sheepdrove Eco Conference Centre. A shortlist of 3,000 entries was made, from which the final 12 images will be selected by celebrity judges John Craven, Bill Bailey and Charlotte Uhlenbroek.

The judges were filmed arriving in Sheepdrove’s own tractor and trailer before being escorted to various other on-site locations throughout the day. This allowed the judges to view and photograph the farm which is classed as an area of outstanding natural beauty and spans approximately 2500 acres.

The judges had the opportunity to see grazing herds of native British cattle and Shetland sheep and family groups of rare-breed Berkshire pigs.

The farm is also teeming with wildlife, with large areas of woodland and species-rich grassland.

One of the judges, Rosy Burke, said: “We had a great day – what an amazing place.”

The twelve finalists images will be revealed during Countryfile at 8pm on Sunday.